Author's School

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Author's Department/Program

Physics

Language

English (en)

Date of Award

Summer 9-1-2014

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Chair and Committee

Francesc Ferrer

Abstract

This work focuses on models of galactic dark matter halos and observational prospects. We investigate the impact of careful computation of the phase-space density and velocity distribution of weakly-interacting massive particles, a major class of dark matter particle candidates, in the Milky Way. In particular, the possibility of a non-trivial velocity-dependence in the self-annihilation cross-section from the Sommerfeld effect is considered in indirect detection; we derive an upper limit on the local velocity dispersion and examine the significance of local anisotropy in the local dark matter distribution in direct detection efforts.

Comments

Permanent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7936/K71J97VK

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